American Reliance, Inc. (AMREL) Official Blog

Update: This telepresence article inspired more than a few comments in LinkedIn discussion groups.  With the authors’ permission, we are reposting comments made by Tandy Trower of Hoaloha Robotics, and Jim Gunderson of Gamma Two Robots.

Here we are, well into the second decade of a new millennium, and not only is there a conspicuous absence of jet packs, but also no robot butler made my breakfast this morning.  Domestic robots are not completely unknown, of course.  There’s the famous vacuuming Roomba, and home-based medical robots are starting to appear.  Yet, while robots are ubiquitous in industry, and rapidly expanding in the military sphere, their presence in our homes is minimal.

2011 was a good year for AMREL and 2012 promises even to be better.  We have all kinds of exciting news and we can’t want to wait to tell you about it. Come to think of it, we have to; this is the last blog post of the year. In the meantime, you and your loved ones have a happy and safe holiday! See you in 2012!

As reported previously in this blog, the 2^nd Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) appears to have successfully tested ARMY’s communication systems.  Not all the results were reassuring.  For example, there was some nasty feedback about the Nett Warrior.  Most surprising was that many warfighters claimed that they didn’t want or need a smartphone.  The ARMY’s smartphone program is threatened by other dangers as well. As noted in Wired, the smartphone could be a casualty of proposed Defense cuts. However, one of the most serious problems is the one that was identified in the earliest days of the program: security. 

I haven’t heard too much about it from the ARMY recently, but some recent news items have raised the prominence of this issue:

December Update If you are not reading The Robot Report (and you should be; it’s one of the best things on the web about the robotic industry), you may have missed their article about the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.  Much of what it says will not be news to the readers of this blog, but one paragraph caught my attention:

The Army has just finished its second Network Integration Evaluation (NIE).  This large exercise appears to have accomplished its primary goals of accelerating the notoriously slow acquisition process, field-testing entire networks, and gathering valuable end-user feedback. Sometime massive bureaucratic efforts do work. 

Faster, more powerful, and more flexible than earlier models, AMREL's new RT9, RK9, and RF9 laptops are perfect for the data-heavy applications used by the military and public safety sectors.

Should robots walk or roll?  While the answer to this question is obvious for certain applications, it has implications for the entire robot industry, and society as a whole.

Today is Veteran’s Day, and it is appropriate that we remember all those who have fought for our freedom.  We encourage you to visit the Wounded Warrior Project and discover how you can support veterans who need our help.

Recently the ARMY announced the cancellation of its current contract for the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Ground Mobile Radio System.  Did its highly publicized plans for a battlefield smartphone have something to it?